question about a certain posting

[frprinterwiz]

Blast me as I have not got the TOS memorized, nor do I have the patience to wade through it this morning.  However there is some information posted on how to crack the Vista login password with links to the software posted here:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/board/message?board.id=OSandSW&thread.id=2661

While the original poster may be completely legit and valid in their request, I really feel personally that on a forum sponsered by a corporate entity, that information such as this is really not acceptable since it could be used by any one else for illegal purposes.  (and yes the bad girl in me seriously considered saving the information for nefarious purposes but I thought better about it LOL). 

So I will leave it up to the admins and mods to determine if the information should be left or removed. 

[DaniW]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention

I posted the official HP support document on this subject to the thread

regards

[CherylG]

While I can see the potential for nefarious use of such disks,I am also quite aware of legit needs of them having worked on many machines where someone's kid set up passwords,played awhile ,moved on to other interests and later doesn't have a clue what it is.Many companies also sell machines to employees when buying new ones and IT doesn't bother to remove passwords--no way to delete all the user logons.Etc,Etc.

Whether posted here or not,they are readily available,free & commercial >>>Example

[frprinterwiz]

I know the applications exist and have legitimate uses, however on a public forum it can be very difficult to determine a legitimate request verses the guy who just did a B&E and needs to clear the password from the laptop before he sells it. 

[CherylG]

Unfortunately that is true, and having been a victim of theft myself I usually hesitate to answer these requests.I have been torn between thinking  would I rather know my property at least ended up doing someone some good or being tossed in the garbage as useless.:smileysad:

[Ubuntu-Fan]

I use this sort of software quite a lot. As a tech I find that new computer users tend to do three things 1) forget their passwords 2) go online without anti-virus software 3) download virus infected software 4) never backup.

All of the password hacks and cracks can be downloaded, but many of these are virus infected too and can cause a system to crash. For password recovery I use Knoppix STD, for data recovery I use Knoppix 5.3.1. (These are free distros)

Recently I was  given a laptop to work on forgotten pasword, it takes some time to get into the system so we were chatting and the guy told me he needed the computer for work as it had all of his tax records and books Cvs ect. So while he is talking I am skimming through the folders and files, I found over 4 Gig of baby pictures and movies, and 11 Gig of music and no tax records. I mentioned this to him and he was gone. A little more searching and I found the name and address of the acual owner he turned out to be an ex-boyfriend and she did'nt want to press charges.

 My point is this sort of infomation should'nt just be given out, you never know who you're dealing with.